What dps/utility buttons old or new would you add to your healer?

[IDontPetLalas]

See this: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Scholar-in-7.0

Yes, those are some excellent ideas, to be honest I had just focussed on AST for the moment that post was just too long to wade through after work today - at least I get paid to analyze that at work.

[Renathras]

Yes, those are some excellent ideas, to be honest I had just focussed on AST for the moment that post was just too long to wade through after work today - at least I get paid to analyze that at work.

Sorry...it's a topic I am passionate about, at least.

As I said, AST is more complicated to me for quite a few reasons. I'm also not sure I explained it all that well. By "like Mudras", I guess I mean where you have the three buttons and you use what you want then hit Play to lock in the effect (and apply it). In theory I suppose there could be some "combining" mechanics in the future, but I was more thinking "buffs laid out before you and you pick which one you need", since I feel like that's the reason we can't have neat and niche Cards in the game, because what if you get them at a time they aren't useful? That's what led to the Balance fishing in the past, which the Dev team seems to want to avoid. I'm not sure it's the best solution, but it's the one that came to me at the time.

[EDIT: And the Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns Minor Arcana retains that RNG feel as well as working with Astrodyne, so AST still has that going for it, unless people just want to dump that entirely.]

CO and CI is more because I'm not sure you'd need them if Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic are providing the same buffs (including Neutral Sect buffing them further), but like I said, those 8 were just the "we need to choose at least 4 to remove to have AST be button neutral with today", which may not actually be a concern, but if it is (since I did add several more buttons), those 8 would probably top the list of what to remove/combine.

I take it you liked/agreed with at least a fair bit of the rest?

.

The SCH ones were basically giving it some more buttons, but not just a boring "here's another DoT on a shorter CD that you have to...press more often! Isn't that great?!", which I find kind of...a total waste of design.

I like the idea of a stacking buff, of Bane and Fester to spread/burst them, and with Biolysis stacking to 3 + Bio + Miasma + Miasma 2, that gives you a total of, effectively, six DoTs to manage, not including Shadowflare (which is a field effect rather than a DoT). Maybe Energy Drain rather than Fester could be what refreshes the DoT duration, or maybe we could just remove ED/have ED upgrade into Fester (would save another button and, in practice, the only time you'd be using ED is if you needed MP from it or couldn't get DoTs up on a target before it became untargetable, making ED a possible damage gain; but those are niche enough removing ED and just having the rotation use Fester would be fine as long as it had a short/no CD)

I don't mind "moar DoTs!" if those DoTs actually have some character and interactions that make them all more interesting.

[ty_taurus]

Sorry...it's a topic I am passionate about, at least.

Some details about the lore of the AST's arcanum deck, FYI, it's not a Jester, but a Knave in the deck. This is from the Encyclopedia Eorzea:

"The Deck of Sixty is most commonly divided into two distinct groups, the major arcana and the minor arcana. The six major arcana--the Spire, the Ewer, the Bole, the Arrow, the Balance, and the Spear--are said to represent the heavens and thus most often utilized in astrological and divinatory pursuits. Conversely, the minor arcana are believed to represent that land and its people, and feature six suits, each containing six cards numbered 1 through 6 (the pip cards0, and three face cards, for a total of fifty-four. Each suit possesses a corresponding element, class, and faculty, as well as direct tie to one of the six major arcana--all characteristics that can be employed (at the teller's discretion) during the scrying of a fortune."

A list of the six suits in the following order of detail:
Suit | Alternate | Faculty | Class | Element | Major Arcana

Crowns | Wreaths | Dominion | Nobility | Lightning | The Spire
Cups | Hearts | Emotion | Clergy | Water || The Ewer
Rings | Pentacles | Possession | Merchants | Earth | The Bole
Knives | Swords | Cognition | Military | Wind | The Arrow
Staves | Batons | Volition | Smallfolk | Fire | The Balance
Irons | Chains | Contrition | Prisoners | Ice | The Spear

"Face cards consist of the 'knave,' the 'lord,' and the highest-ranking 'lady.' When used in conjunction with the pip cards, their numerical values are 7, 8, and 9 respectively."

There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester.

[Renathras]

There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester.

No offense taken at all! Jester was just the first thing that came to mind as a Joker or that FFXV line (probably among Noctis best, even if it IS quite ironic considering Ardyn is arguably the rightful king...): "Off my throne, jester; the king sits there." I suppose Jack or Knave would be the other face card.

Also, I love lore and don't have the EE (much as I'd like to get one), so always appreciate a bit more.

As far as the idea, I was more thinking of a third thing to make that (since it's the "new RNG element") feel a bit more RNG, and also to provide a third option for a third seal for Astrodyne. So Knave instead of Jester is perfectly suitable.

So, what did you think, btw? That's the most detail I've put yet into Healer Job reworks...

[ty_taurus]

So, what did you think, btw? That's the most detail I've put yet into Healer Job reworks...

For now, I'll just go over WHM. It's getting late for me and I'll be going to bed soon.

Without digging into old wounds, what I'll say is this: WHM can still be forgiving and simple while having a little more layers to its consistent gameplay--gameplay that exists regardless of whether healing is needed or not. Offensively, what I'd like to see is:
- Giving Holy a purpose in single target environments.
- The inclusion of a legitimate Water spell at lower levels which can upgrade later.
- Some type of small "payoff" spell. If Afflatus Misery is to BLM's Foul, then something that is a modest Flare.

This would only be two additional offensive actions, and they can be executed in a way that can be simple, yet elegant. For example, what if Water and its future upgrade replace Presence of Mind? Let's say it has 2 charges with a 30 second cooldown on the GCD, but only reduces cast/recast time by 10% for 8 seconds. This gives you a very simple-to-use tool that lets you more consistently pick and choose small burst windows for attack spells, and also makes solo content a little faster.

Additionally, I don't like making all GCD healing universally DPS neutral, and I don't think it actually benefits the appeal to simplicity argument as much as it would seem to at face value. If WHM's DPS contributions are effectively at 100% uptime because everything generates Glare damage, it means that's a factor that needs to go into fight design balance, and the "least" DPS you can do is also the "most" DPS you can do, meaning there's no room for improvement there. But if you let there be room for improvement, that means a WHM who gets better at a fight and can more comfortably trim GCD heals is also able to squeeze out extra damage, and potentially help a party hit enrages, or more optimally cut out mechanics from the end of fights. If all your healing is Glaring, you can't try to squeeze out that extra damage to potentially help your team skip Snake 2/Beast 2 in P8S phase 1, for example, or skip Cochexia 2 in P6S.

If not all GCD healing is DPS neutral, that also makes you think more critically about what tools to work with during healing-heavy phases. In a dungeon, you can rely on mostly just Afflatus Solace and Rapture to handle the shallow amounts of necessary healing you'll have to put out if things run smoothly, but certain phases during EX or Savage fights that ask for back-to-back healing can force you to rely on other tools, and I think that makes the healing side of WHM more fun, no? Having to decide what the most efficient way to heal through that phase is?

As for other tools, extra mitigation is absolutely necessary if it's going to keep being as mandatory as mitigation has been this expansion. Personally, I like the flavor of extending max HP on WHM more than flat mitigation, but that's besides the point. I also think WHM deserves some kind of strong utility to help it stand out more against the other healers. I'm not sure if you've ever responded to the idea of giving WHM Float which I've brought up, as a 2 minute cooldown that lets your party ignore puddle damage and floor damage for 10 seconds, and perhaps with some additional mitigation or a regen so that it's still useful even when those mechanics don't exist.

[Renathras]

For now, I'll just go over WHM. It's getting late for me and I'll be going to bed soon.

Honestly, WHM is the one I wish you would have skipped. XD WHM I changed the least, and I know you really want all the healers to have new spells and/or interactions and/or complexities, so I already know you wouldn't like my WHM proposal. That's the one I could guess at offhand.

What I wanted to know is if you liked the SCH, SGE, or AST proposals, since those are actually more sweeping changes to the Jobs and I constructed them specifically to appeal to players like you.

Strictly speaking, I do have a solution for ONE of your concerns, though:

The inclusion of a legitimate Water spell at lower levels which can upgrade later.

Holy.

Make low level Water be an AOE centered on self that makes a water bubble float into the air and then burst.

Playing FF8 on Steam (picked it up and it's been literally 2 decades since I played it, and I don't think I ever finished it because PS2s would hardlock during the Lunatic Pandora sequence, so I'm giving it a new go!) and the Water spell there is a big water bubble that kind of forms on the enemy, floats up with them trapped inside, then pops. Water also worked this way in FF9, I believe. Water was always an uncommon spell for players in FF games, but was generally a mid-level spell. Instead of "Water 1, 2, and 3", there was just "Water" that was roughly comparable in strength to a 2.5 level Fire/Blizzard/Thunder spell (that is, somewhere between 2 and 3). Some iterations were AOE, but the animation always made it look like it should be. And given the way Holly works right now where it kind of floats up and bursts, Water doing that would make perfect sense.

Also: Did Qarn normal this afternoon in my Leveling Roulette and noticed in the very first pack "lol, forgot I don't have Holy yet... XD" when I was smacking the button and nothing was happening. (It was a fun goofy run with a DRK Tank that's normally a Healer and some chill DPS leveling folks). Getting AOEs for leveling is something that happens somewhat stupidly late for a lot of Jobs, and WHM is no exception, not getting Holy until 45. Getting an AOE Water spell at 15 when you do the Trial of Water quest. This would give you an AOE damage spell for every Dungeon in the game from Sastasha normal at 15 to level cap. The only group content you wouldn't have it for would be the first two Guildleves, the first of which enemies come in small packs and the second one is mainly a boss fight that occasionally summons 1-2 adds.

Regardless, Water upgrading to Holy would work pretty well as the Water spell's cast time and animation would be very similar to Holy's and it would be a pretty natural transition. Not to mention getting an AOE at level 15 after the Trial of Water quest just makes sense in every way possible - the quest, being the level to start running group content; the stars align themselves for it!

and the "least" DPS you can do is also the "most" DPS you can do

Not really. Letting Dia fall off would be a DPS loss, and I even explicitly said to make Glare x4 20-40 potency higher (5-10 per) vs Misery to make Glare the slightly higher damage option. Collectively, these two things already prevent your least damage being equal to your most. Though for the record, the worst player doing the same damage as the best player WOULD be a simplicity argument. You can't get more simple than that. GCD healing doesn't have to be perfectly damage neutral, but it shouldn't be a massive DPS loss. Per my way of thinking, Healers shouldn't be focusing on damage at all, and the damage should be a thing that kind of happens (basically the reverse of Eos/Kardia, which are healing that just kinda happens), but that doesn't make sense in FFXIV's combat model, so Misery/Glare/Dia works fine for that instead.

Note that the other Healer propositions are all pretty unique from that, for players that really want that high skill expression gameplay...

...which is why I'd like to hear you talk about those instead. Since I already knew you wouldn't like my WHM proposal so we didn't really need to even discuss it. I've already accepted you won't like any "leave one alone" option I present, no matter which it is, or even if I proposed adding a new Healer Job specifically to be "the simple one", so I'd rather just skip over that part and get to the good stuff of the other three since maybe we could have some agreement on those.

Other than Water -> Holy. That's a good idea I'm going to have to remember for any future proposals...

Float is an interesting idea, but I feel like the problem is it's based entirely on fight design. Either lots of fights will have to have puddles for it to matter (but if it matters too much, then WHM becomes OP), or fights won't have puddles and no one will care about WHM bringing Float. It's kind of like Expedient. Super useful when it matters (the movement speed component), but when you don't need it or when it can be detrimental (forced march mechanics), no one cares. I personally HAVE thought Float and/or jumping should mitigate some types of arena AOEs, but I'm not sure working that into a specific Healer would work, because then people would complain if they didn't have that Healer Job in their parties. In my FF8 game, just did the Brothers GF recently. Laughed at the NPCs running from the tomb shouting about using Float, and figured I could use it to avoid an Earth attack, but then in both fights when I saw Sacred and then Sacred and Minotaur both healing from Earth damage being absorbed by them (at least, I THINK that's how that works...might just be some kind of field effect, but either way...), I put two and two together and kept THEM floating for the fight, too.

It's one of the problems with situational non-damage/mitigation/healing utility - when it's useless, it's totally garbage, but when it's strong, it tends to be super strong (Expedient's speed buff was nerfed super fast); it shouldn't have to be binary, but for some reason, it often is.

.

EDIT: To be clear:

I don't mean this to be unnecessarily dismissive or anything. I just know that anything even approaching "leave as it is" you're going to dislike or propose changes to, so we're just not going to agree on that and I think it's better to simply ignore those cases because there's no way to agree on it. Even my proposed WHM changes ARE changes rather than leaving it as it is, they're just compatible with someone playing as they do today being in more or less an equal position to someone playing it the new way (rather than the new way person having an advantage), which you don't wish to allow. That is, even "change it, don't leave it alone" is unacceptable to you unless anyone playing the old way is disadvantaged/put out/unviable/etc.

So since we CAN'T agree on that, I'd rather we discuss the others where we may actually have some avenues of agreement.

[IDontPetLalas]

Some details about the lore of the AST's arcanum deck, FYI, it's not a Jester, but a Knave in the deck. This is from the Encyclopedia Eorzea:

"The Deck of Sixty is most commonly divided into two distinct groups, the major arcana and the minor arcana. The six major arcana--the Spire, the Ewer, the Bole, the Arrow, the Balance, and the Spear--are said to represent the heavens and thus most often utilized in astrological and divinatory pursuits. Conversely, the minor arcana are believed to represent that land and its people, and feature six suits, each containing six cards numbered 1 through 6 (the pip cards0, and three face cards, for a total of fifty-four. Each suit possesses a corresponding element, class, and faculty, as well as direct tie to one of the six major arcana--all characteristics that can be employed (at the teller's discretion) during the scrying of a fortune."

A list of the six suits in the following order of detail:
Suit | Alternate | Faculty | Class | Element | Major Arcana

*snip*

"Face cards consist of the 'knave,' the 'lord,' and the highest-ranking 'lady.' When used in conjunction with the pip cards, their numerical values are 7, 8, and 9 respectively."

There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester.

I find lore interesting from a conceptual aspect, but I do not want a job held back due to what reads well due to lore or pretty animations. Yes, I like sparkly stars and stories however I would give that up in an instant for a job that has better gameplay- which I did.

I would not find a convoluted card system, what sounds "interesting" on paper becomes less so in practise when (at least for myself) cards are part of the job, the fun is spent dealing cards, healing and doing damage, and their is no major fascination in dealing cards. It's like asking a tank to get excited about rotating their mitigation - they're happy that they have good mitigation skills, they don't expect to spend all of their time looking at them or thinking about them.

There are some simpler things that could be done for QOL changes (remove some useless skills), and some more dramatic ones - such as bring back Nocturnal sect (ie. basically SHb AST). I could also propose allowing ASTs to change sects while in combat. Give AST another DPS skill or combo action.

I would also really be a proponent of restoring SCH skills or giving them alternatives, and I would say that each healer can make a good case for changes.

[SargeTheSeagull]

WHM:
Aero 3 is back. Same potency as glare. Increases potency of next heal by 50%. 15 sec cooldown. Heal buff stacks twice.

Dia has a 2.5 second cast time and works the same as thundercloud on BLM.

New OGCD: elemental ward. Puts a persistent aoe on the floor as big as asylum that increases your damage by 10%.

Any GCD heal that doesn’t consume a lily (cure, medica 2 etc.) while standing in elemental ward charges your lifebloom.

Your lifebloom works the same way as blood lily. However, it grants access to Seraph Strike.

Seraph Strike- Usable regardless of how much your lifebloom has been charged. Dash at the enemy and strike them with an attack that deals damage equal to the missed glares. Restores 10% of your MP. 50% chance to proc into enhanced Holy III. 15 sec cooldown.

Afflatus Misery- Now has a 50% chance to grant enhanced Holy III.

Enhanced Holy III- deals damage with a potency of 500 to all nearby enemies. Stacks twice. Grants freecure.

Glare- Has a 20% chance to grant Enhanced Holy III or freecure.

Freecure: Your next GCD heal is free (ie doesn’t consume lily or cost MP) but still feeds blood lily or lifebloom.

SGE
I really like Taurus’s ideas but I’ll toss in my idea too.

Sage has a raid buff. Libra. 60 sec cooldown. Increases damage dealt to nearby enemies by 5-10%. Every cast of dosis against the target has a 50% chance to grant a sting or a charge of phlegma. 30% of any healing you do while libra is active is dealt to any enemy affected by Libra.

Aimolipsía- AoE cone OGCD attack that lands 2 hits on the target and nearby enemies. 300 potency. 2 charges. 60 sec recharge.

Toxicon grants a free charge of phlegma.

Every four casts of dosis grants a charge of aimolipsia.

SCH

Miasma 3 is back. 18 sec duration.

Miasma 2 replaces art of war. Works the same as it did in SB.

Any time you apply a barrier, you gain a buff that increases the damage of your next miasma 3. Stacks 3 times.

Bane is back. Spreads your dots to nearby targets.

Shadowflare is back. Persistent ground AoE that continually damages any enemies inside. Consumes an aetherflow.

Energy drain is replaced by fester. Damage increases based on the number of dots the target has. Maybe on the GCD?

All heals sans adlo and succor consume fairy gauge. Fairy gauge heals have a 50% chance to grant aetherflow.

New cooldown that consumes your DoT's and makes them deal all of their remaining damage at once.